[D] Specific counter picks

Riven beats her at all stages of the lane. Akali's damage is insignificant as compared to riven at level 1 and beyond, Q- only harass by Akali can be negated by Riven's shield, her post 6 mobility is matched by Riven, and she can be AoE'd under shroud by Riven as well. Don't pick her into this matchup. If you have, open cloth 5pot and try to salvage what cs you can, or go all-in and ask for extremely early jungle ganks in the hope that you can kill her early (if so, the lane can become playable with a level or two of advantage).

Lee Sin's e, if hit, can cause Akali's shroud to be of limited effectiveness in escaping harass and creep aggro as well as in juking. Akali can use the invis period before the destealth when leaving the shroud, in combination with placing the shroud next to bushes, in order to dodge his e. With a cloth 5 pot opening the lane is sustainable for Akali, although ganks may be needed.

Janna is the queen of kiting. Alistar (in lane anyways) has some issues with getting close to people, esp if flash is down. He's also highly burst-reliant, and well-timed shields can negate a ton of his damage. Oftentimes, on either side of the matchup, I find the opportunites to really commit on either person as Alistar to be halved if Janna is paying attention.

I'm a little bit hesitant to call vayne a 'counter' to alistar, but good condemns are again, really good at keeping cow away. True dmg also more/less negates his ult.

Anivia struggles against casters who have long range spells not blocked by creeps that can double as harass and AoE clears pre 6, as lasthitting underneath tower with her is difficult, and she has trouble managing long range trades with her q+e combo. Her counterharass against shorter range spells is significantly stronger as the chance of landing her q goes up significantly with shorter distance between her target and herself. If these casters also have a good autoattack animation and the ability to kill her when egged, these matchups can be disastrous for Anivia without proper team aid. Some examples of such difficult opponents include Cassiopeia and Viktor. These lanes become extremely troublesome when disadvantaged, as they can harass Anivia when she comes close enough to ult and clear the wave, while being able to counterpush against Anivia as well. Take care not to die early against these lanes, requesting jungler aid as needed.

Given the nature of Annie's kit, she usually either onesidedly wins lanes or loses them in straight up 1v1s. Her kit in lane is essentially 3 damage spells, one with a mana reset (helpful in trades and to build up her passive stacks). The ranges on her q and w, 625, is decidedly average for a caster. They are not short enough for most AP champions to be able to spell-harass her without fear of retribution if she opens boots and run towards the enemy champion as she is targetted. However, one champion with such a kit is Zilean. With a 85 range advantage on his main damage and a speed boost as needed, he is able to harass Annie without fear whenever she goes for a q lasthit. Thus Annie is forced to save her q's to counterharass Zilean, and lose to the superior damage of Zilean's double bomb at 3 and 5 (in the time it takes Zilean to double bomb her, she can only get her q off reliably if Zilean starts walking backwards inbetween cast animations), or risk missing her w due to Zilean speed boost or quick movement from Zilean. Annie's options in this matchup are to either recieve superior jungler support (she has an advantage over most AP mids in that she has a fairly long range point and click stun to set up ganks, so losing lanes can be turned around by jungler ganks) or to go all in with ignite at early levels and hope for a misplay or for the enemy to be harassed to the point that the all in will work. The former is a more reliable option.

While Zilean is the most binary counter to Annie, other casters with long range harass that can reliably land are also very powerful against her. Xerath has similar laning function to Annie (harass / trade into conditional stun and ignite kill) but has superior range on his primary harass. Cassiopeia has superior range with her q, but her real threat to Annie is Annie's inability to trade efficiently with Cassiopeia when she has been poisoned and her stun is not up. This usually results in Annie getting harassed low enough to the point where she cannot reliably build q charges. One less direct but similarly powerful counter is to pick a sustainable laner who has very powerful clearing abilities, forcing Annie to play on the back hand while they are able to take jungle camps / objectives / gank, while being unmovable in lane when they are present. Such laners include Cho'Gath and Galio, whom when runed properly can both sustain themselves and punish Annie for overt harass. The possibilities for Annie to deal with these softer counters are the same as with Zilean, jungler support and setup with stun comboes and all-ins. All-ins tend to be more successful against skillshot champions, as their harass is avoidable through skill and juking, and thus more favorable situations are more easily created than against Zilean's point and click harass.

When Annie hits 6 and beyond, she gains incredible kill potential that makes her deadly if her opponent does not have a big level advantage. If she is allowed to build damage and stun charges on the enemy, she will always have a huge burst threat at and beyond this point. If you are able to survive beyond this point against non Cho/Galio counterpicks, you should have a shot at instagibbing them (especially with jungler aid).

Reserved for when I play her post patch.

Brand’s strength in lane depends upon landing his W. After the range nerf to his E, it has become more difficult for Brand players to make efficient long range poke / poke trades with E in the combo. Should you find yourself laning versus Brand, you will want to open boots the vast majority of the time, as if you can reliably dodge his W’s, you can come out of laning unscathed if your goal is to outfarm and outscale him, or out-trade him if your goal is to kill him in lane. While he does have the kit to clear creeps, if he does not have access to blue (killed with blue, blue stolen, enemy jungler has their blue, etc.) he cannot keep up clear speeds mid as compared to other fast and more mana efficient lane clearers.

Cassiopeia (solo lane)
+ Show Spoiler [Galio] +

Thus, smart picks against Brand include Xerath (huge range advantage over Brand, more reliable poke, movespeed steroid on w if siege-ing onto Brand and he approaches you, stronger and more reliable burst at 6), Morgana and Galio (for mana efficient lane clearing and some form of protection from his burst and poke as needed), Karthus (Brand has difficulty approaching a cautious Karthus due to wall. If Karthus takes care to not get hit by Brand’s skillshots, he can easily farm his lane to the point where he has greater map presence and lane clearing ability than Brand), Cassiopeia (she has greater range on her q, a variety of slows / speeds which are useful in skillshot battles, and if she avoids Brand’s stun, can win any head on engagement with ease), Mordekaiser (with proper regen and mres, Morde can essentially ignore any harass from Brand while pushing with extreme efficiency and landing incidental harassment with E from very early on. 12 health pot openings are the best huehuehue).

Cho’Gath is also a notable champion with very few counters with correct runes and masteries. His sustain and consistent damage make it very difficult to trade with Cho’Gath unless the Cho in question is very bad at lasthitting or is pressured early on so that he cannot come back into lasthitting range (early jungler ganks, etc.). He also has great flexibility in itemization, especially defensive items, and as such can utilize this along with the free HP granted from his ultimate to become immovable in lane. The vast majority of top lane champions thus cannot win straight up against a smart Cho player.

Most typical “AD bruisers” are not an exception to this against a Cho with a 25 + armor setup. However, a few can feel very comfortable trading farm with Cho’Gath. Irelia, Riven, and Tryndamere all can trade farm with Cho’Gath (Riven and Tryndamere have methods of escaping his combo with good reaction time, and Irelia has a situational dash / high sustain as well) and come out ahead in the lategame – although they may feel weak in the first dragon fight if Cho’Gath chooses to take teleport and teleports there, as his AoE cc and true damage burst tends to contribute more to early fights.

Gangplank can simply zone Cho'Gath from level 1, as Cho needs to stay reasonably close to CS - his sustain is entirely dependent on lasthitting, and GP can deal great damage from level 1 and put Cho in a situation where he cannot autoattack for lasthits.

While Corki is typically played bottom in today’s League of Legends, he was once one of the greatest mid lane dominators. His clearing ability and strong poke make him a viable solo in double AD and various AoE comps.

Corki excels against those whom he can utilize his strong autoattack and q against – thus melee casters such as Kassadin and Gragas can often struggle against Corki in lane. On the other hand, laners with a strong form of counterharass can be played against Corki with success – Cassiopeia does not fear Corki’s harass because if she lands a q she can come ahead drastically. Also, valkyrie-ing onto Cassiopeia post 6 is suicide for Corki, as her ult will destroy any ability to trade. Corki should have cleanse and a very, very large health difference if he wishes to attempt something of the sort.

A less hard counter but notable pick against Corki is Anivia – her autoattack range is sufficiently long that she can lasthit effectively, and if Corki makes it clear that he wishes to harass her, she can aim for a Q + E if his path of travel is readable. Her clear efficiency with blue exceeds that of Corki’s, and she has harder scaling in the right team composition.

To understand what can counter Galio, we must first look at his strengths.

1. Galio’s ability to straight up trade most APs, especially those with DoT effects, is second to none when his bulwark is activated. The additional Armor / MR alone would be sufficient to make trades even or in his favor, but the heal combined with this makes him actually heal from weak DoT effects.

2. His relatively low mana costs, along with his ability to buy many mana regen items (Catalyst, Chalice, Philo Stone: try not to get Chalice and Catalyst together if possible) that are useful for him make him a very efficient clearer when he can insta-clear waves and harasser at all levels.

3. The slow / speed on his Q + E also make him a choice chaser when the enemy is low, as well as giving him the ability to peel for himself and reducing the effectiveness of skillshot users.

4. Lastly, his passive: this passive allows Galio to build MR / items such as chalice while gaining damage at the same time, increasing the effectiveness of such builds while drastically reducing AP damage even further.

These factors combined make Galio a monster laning versus most APs. Even basic AD champions can have trouble to Galio due to his incidental harass being more powerful than their autoattacks. However, there are a few picks that either beat his strengths in efficiency or completely counter his kit.

Udyr's Tiger Stance has a strange interaction with Galio: Galio’s bulwark should be great against its DoT, and it is magic damage as well. However, with his stun and the ability to bait bulwarks by simply walking near Galio and walking away again, Udyr can comfortably use his tiger to harass or to bait mana usage from Galio. Should he use it with Galio, he will come out ahead in terms of mana used as well.

Galio’s incidental harass with Q+E in clearing is less effective versus Udyr due to Udyr’s turtle, which, again, is even more mana efficient than Galio’s combo while giving him mana / HP on every hit.

Galio’s ability to push is also negated by turtle. Should Galio begin to push on Udyr, Udyr can stagnate the lane by simply tanking creeps with turtle stance until the creepwaves meet outside of his tower, and be in a safe position to farm while zoning Galio from creeps with tiger / bear.

I recommend taking teleport as Udyr if you are vs. Galio, as a Galio with teleport may simply decide to back and walk to dragon if you are tanking creeps, which you can respond to with a teleport of your own kind if necessary, or you may just push to the tower if there is no need for a teleport – give yourself the option, as one won teamfight may change the pace of the game. You do not need ignite to heavily damage Galio either.

Udyr counters Galio in lane for dealing with Galio’s 1st, 2nd, and 3rd strengths (ability to bait bulwarks and punish when it is down with tiger, 1., beating him in mana efficiency, 2., and negating the slow / speed of Galio’s Q/E with stuns / bear as needed (again going back to mana efficiency as well), 3.). However, Galio still makes good use of his passive in this lane.

In looking at another type of counter to Galio, we see a type of hero that can not only punish Galio in 1., 2., and 3., but also reduce Galio’s usage of 4 such that his teamfighting presence is much weaker.

Garen and Lee Sin both have no mana, making 2. essentially a null point. Their instant application of damage (Garen is able to cancel his spin if Galio activates bulwark and he decides it is not worth using any longer) and kits (Garen’s silence and Lee Sin’s mobility / better slow) make it such that Galio’s slow and speed are difficult to use to avoid these due to mana constraint while making bulwark also less effective, as Garen and Lee do not have to commit greatly in exchanges, and have no mana constraints. Thus, 1., 2., and 3. are not of particular worth to Galio in these matchups.

In these matchups, Galio has 2 options. 1, he can build armor and barely survive / farm inefficiently in lane (with timely bulwark usage versus Garen, especially if Garen decides to flash Q when Galio is low and he is level 6, he can survive) or 2. he can die or get zoned (Garen and Lee’s kits are good for this in that they have a form of melee CC that they can use to prevent Galio from lasthitting from level 1 onwards). In foregoing MR to barely survive in lane (even with teleports to return to lane), Galio loses the great efficiency of his passive along with his effective immunity to magic at early fights.

Gangplank is a versatile toplane in that he has a combination of ranged harass with his Q, a very effective slow, movespeed etc. steroid, and heal in lane. He is fine with farming at tower because he is able to exert pressure around the map with his ultimate, so most stalemate-ing lanes are favorable for him.

The biggest difference in his kit from most toplane bruisers is his ranged harassment capabilities.

The bruisers with an ability to negate or match, or do both, against GP tend to come out favorably against the plank.

Riven is sufficiently stronger midgame that if GP does not get a large advantage in lane, the lane is favorable for her. However, she can straight up win exchanges versus GP when she hits level 3 and has all of her skills. The most difficult period of time against GP is levels 1 (and after the w nerf, level 2) as she is unable to exchange harass efficiently and indeed can die to GP’s passive if she is not careful.

To remedy this, Riven can open E at level 1 and then continue with a normal skill order. With enough practice or reaction time, it is simple to E the majority of GP’s Q harassment. At level 1, your E will entirely shield the damage it deals with armor runes – making passive farming possible. After Riven hits level 3, she has the mobility to reach GP and to disengage as needed: her abilities will win on pure damage if GP is not allowed to amass passive stacks. Essentially, after being stunned, GP has two options: 1. Eat oranges and trade even damage but lose a lot of mana, or 2. Lose the trade. From here on out, if Riven does not die to a gank, she should have very little to no problem dealing with GP as long as she uses her shield to block damage.

Udyr: GP simply does no damage through Udyr’s turtle stance. Unlike Riven’s E which has a very short duration shield, Udyr’s turtle stance lasts for much longer. The passive HP / Mana regained per hit makes it such that if GP ever attempts to commit to an exchange, you can open with turtle whenever he sends a Q at your way, and then follow with tiger and pound on him and one-sidedly win the exchange. GP does not have a lot of options in this matchup, except for to ask for an early gank. Otherwise, an early death / teleport / tower down is almost inevitable. GP simply cannot trade, and against an Udyr who positions himself to damage you whenever you come near the creeps, you will find yourself zoned.

If you are playing as Udyr, note two things: open boots, as there is no need to open cloth to win exchanges with armor yellows; and you do not need to turn on tiger to deal damage when zoning GP, as you may run yourself OOM doing so.

Notable mention:
Pantheon: If GP does not run a full armor setup, Pantheon can dominate this matchup. Even if he does, Pantheon noticeably has the lead in early levels – however, against a passive GP who opens cloth5pot and maxes W, Pantheon must overextend himself to keep pressure on GP from lasthitting properly, which is death against any coordinated jungler gank. However, against armor-less GPs who underestimate Pantheon’s strength, this is a notable counter, as like the other two, Pantheon’s passive largely negates the effectiveness of GP’s ranged harass, and can force favorable trades early on.

As a melee with extremely long ranged poke and high mobility and damage at melee range, Gragas has a strange kit that makes for very strange matchups. His W steroid along with his passive give him innate sustain that has noticeable effect, but is not enough to negate autoattack harass entirely. If he can land his barrels reliably, he can usually exert lane control stronger than most APs; however, if he cannot, he may have to farm from a range against aggressive enemies.

Cassiopeia can straight up out-trade Gragas, as she will out-trade him in all but the most extreme scenarios (Gragas lands his Q and she does not, for instance). Her smooth ranged attack adds extra damage that accumulates as well.

Vlad has the range advantage and a very simple point and click nuke that heals himself, making it difficult for Gragas to build up the harass for a kill combo; in addition, if Gragas ever commits, Vlad always has the option to pool as needed. Indeed, it is the latter (along with Vlad’s increasingly powerful sustain as the game progresses) that makes him a fine counterpick to Gragas.

In Top lane, Gragas has trouble against bruisers who have good sustain, as his sustain is mediocre at best in comparison to some sustain skills (Irelia’s W, WW’s passive and Q, Tryndamere, etc.) while many bruisers also have the mobility to either dodge or counterattack Gragas with ease. Tryndamere, Irelia, and Riven are three examples of very hard scaling top-lane champions that would be able to freefarm and harass Gragas as they pleased in this matchup.

AD carries with fast blinks or small scale movement (Corki, Vayne, Ezreal) are good against Gragas in that they can dodge his kill combos (and with Vayne in particular, counter any harass attempts by using her Q to dodge E/Qs and harass in turn without hurting for mana) and have strong autoattacks to punish any melee lasthits he attempts.

While the list of APs that can harass and trade with Gragas pre-6 is quite long, once Gragas hits 6, almost all matchups should change drastically. In addition to the fact that by this time, Gragas should receive blue or back and buy some DRings (or both), his poke damage and frequency (due to the available mana) and his kill potential (with the ultimate as initiation) is incredibly high. For example, if Cassiopeia ever falls below 50% HP, with an ultimate that brings her into body slam range, Gragas can effectively 1 shot her, whereas Cassiopeia’s ult threat range is much shorter. Matchups that were entirely lost or difficult can change completely, so this is worth taking into consideration.

Also, against those who have the mobility to dodge or negate the effectiveness of his ultimate (short range blinks, invulnerabilities such as Fizz E or Vlad pool, Morgana’s black shield or Galio’s bulwark and Mres in general), if he so desires, Gragas can simply instantly clear waves with 1 or 2 Q’s and Es as needed. Gragas has range only matched by Xerath for these types of clears, so any “hard counter” lanes may lose their effectiveness after a certain point; he has great mobility and can gank after a fast lane clear.

Kassadin destroys karthus, his teleport mobility allows him to completely avoid taking any damage from karthus's Q, aura and wall once he reaches level 6. Karthus Q spam will allow kassadin to constanty use his E, and the silence shuts down any counterattack. Kassadin can also jump in and silence karthus if he tries to channel his ult, even if he is far under tower. There is literally nothing karthus can do vs kassadin.

LeBlanc is soft-countered by hard pushers (Cassio, Ahri, Morgana, Morde, etc.). If you don't manage to get ahead in the early-game you basically lose the game. One specific hard-counter for her is Sion, who not only is a hard pusher, but also gains health by pushing the lane, which negates the burst LeBlanc has.

Galio is a very good lane counter to Leblanc. Galio's inherent tankyness and more incentive to build MR (because of his passive), Leblanc will be unable to kill him in lane, preventing her from snowballing unless she roams. Galio also is very good at pushing the lane, pushing Leblanc to her tower and forcing her to use spells on CSing or risking losing it to the tower.

Xerath is an excellent counterpick to malz because his even more extensive range allows him to stay at safe range from all of malz's damaging spells, malzes Q, which outranges most other AP's considerably, is only encountered at maximum range and its delay makes it easily dodgeable. Xerath can also keep up with Malz's pushing easily and CS from far enough back to be safe from Malefic Visions The really brutal thing about Xerath vs Malz is the fact that Xeraths ult so heavily outclasses Malzahars. The only time you are ever likely to be within range of Malz's ult is when starting your full stun and Ult combo, and due to the quirk of delay in Xerath's ult hitting, if you hit it fast your ult will actually come down right after Malz starts his ult, stunning and interrupting it, at this point malz is pretty much screwed.

Morgana is both hard to kill, and hard to prevent from farming. Her weaknesses in turn are long cds, high cost spells. and a lack of point'n'click.
Due to the "delayed" nature of her clearing (she needs to have the wave still 4 to 5 seconds, eventually adding some aas in), she is susceptible against champions capable of insta-clearing her wave, pushing theirs out of the AoE before it deals significant damage to the melee minions (the ranged might die as they'll walk across).

Gragas and Viktor are both fairly safe against ganks, Gragas thanks to his E, and Viktor to his W. Their clearing abilities are on shorter cooldowns and are more mana-efficient in Gragas' case.
Gragas has to watch his positioning before he reaches insta-clear status, as his melee range may put him into Tormented Soil's AoE at the same time as some of his minions, which Morgana may want. At 6, he can't really kill her because unless Morgana stays close to him she should have time to react if he ults. However, he should himself be able to use E and R, both on shorter cooldown than Morg's ult, to break her tether

Viktor has the advantage of his line-AoE : well cast, it can kill the whole wave even before it is stabilized, reducing the amount of damage Tormented Soil deals to them. If Morgana chooses to tank the minions left (counting on her passive to heal it up on the next wave, rinse-and-repeat) he can easily harass her with aas while staying safe from Dark Binding. His Q allows him to mitigate a bit of her damage on a lower cooldown and better mana-efficiency. However, contrary to Gragas he can't break out of Soul Shackles, lacking mobility. At most he can slow her with W if she isn't yet in range when he gets caught by Dark Binding, and try to outrun her.

Both also have positioning altering ultimates (forced for Gragas, enticed by Viktor as people don't want to eat the full dps) and AoE cc so they can mirror her threat post-laning.

Malphite + Cho'gath both fall under the same category because they largely screw with pantheon for the approx the same reasons. The primary reason is the fact that they can just straight up build armor and it doesn't affect their build at all, since they typically build said armor items anyways (i.e. frozen heart, GA, etc) and don't have to rush an early offensive item to be effective. Thus, they can very quickly out-armor pantheon for 0 opportunity cost.

In terms of actual laning specifics:For malphite, his temp shield is very frustrating for panth to deal with, since it operates largely the same as pantheon's own shield, except that it's even better vs spells, which is the primary form of lane interaction that pantheon has. He also cannot trade q + e combos as well with malphite, partially due to the shield, and partially due to the movespeed and attackspeed reductions that come with it. All in all, malph becomes a very frustrating champ to lane against as a pantheon.

For cho'gath, his healing passive makes it very difficult for pantheon's harass to have much of a long-term effect. Furthermore, he can actually trade autoattacks with pantheon early on due to vorpal spikes. Finally, cho is really effective at disrupting panth's HSS with both scream and knockup, and, because it disrupts HSS, it means that cho's q+e+auto combo will often outtrade pantheon's own q+w+e+q combo.

Yorick is a massive jackass in general and can really screw with pantheon in a lot of ways. First of all, his ghouls largely negate panth's passive, and panth's passive is actually a major factor dictating a lot of his vs. melee wins. Second of all, Yorick has a low CD, low mana cost, long range harass nuke that also has a significant amount of burst and sustained heal, all in one skill, (which is nuts in general). Post lvl 6, it is very difficult to commit vs yorick because he can basically just zerg you, and even if you do manage to kill him, he comes back and finishes you off anyways. The final nail in the coffin is that yorick completely out-maneuvers pantheon in terms of mobility. He is faster than pantheon (with q) and he can slow the shit out of panth (with w) for an extended period of time.

Nasus. For whatever reason I have always seemed to flat out >WIN< when I play Nasus vs rumble, even in 1v1's with no jungler. You have enough sustain that you can just rush philo-->boots-->spirit visage and every time he flame spitters you just run away, eat 2 ticks, then go lifesteal and regen to full again. Around level 7-11 ish you can just wait for him to use Q, when it's on the last tick you W E Q and if he R's you you R him, you at least force a flash if not straight up kill him. Even if you don't want to fight him, if he attempts to stop you free farming and pushes you to tower not only can you CS and sustain yourself there but the jungler gank is a guaranteed kill with your E. You might want a couple points in E over W. Attack speed slow is not a priority versus him while arpen makes him extra squishy and the damage and pushing power helps if he tries to roam. (Altho TP should solve this roaming problem).

Against Singed toplane your best bet is to pick Ryze. You should harass and zone Singed very hard with auto-attacks whenever he moves in for a last-hit and starting with lvl3 also with frequent Qs. Since Singed relies on getting close to be obnoxious Ryze should always easily answer with a QWQ Combo. Ryze also scales very hard into later stages of the game, which will be easy reached due to the lack of harassment of Singed.

Alistar will usually beat Taric in lane. Taric's only major advantage as a support is his engagement power in lane. His stun, armor buff, and armor debuff make it so that he wins every bottom lane engage, that is except against Alistar. Taric is unable to get his stun shatter combo against an Alistar because Alistar will just retaliate with pulverize headbutt. Any sort of stun engagement Taric does gets denied with headbutt. This stems from the fact that Alistar usually has trouble getting into melee range to land his combo, and Taric has to come close to combo him.

Once urgot lands his bomb, pop a stun on him and he'll only be able to shoot maybe one dagger. With your armor buff, dagger damage is cut down drastically. Without lane bullying, Urgot isn't very strong overall.

Urgot's harass has no way of outdamaging Soraka's heal and armor buff. Once Urgot lands a bomb, silence him and heal as needed. Same reason as above, without Urgot being able to harass, he's much less a threat.

Ezreal is basically SG's go-to counerpick bot lane vs vayne. His early up-front burst is phenomenal, and his attack-speed debuff really screws over vayne since A) it affects her silver bolts, and B) vayne's effective range is short enough and her movement predictable enough that it's actually fairly reasonable to consistenly hit w's

Urgot's primary weakness in bot lane is his lack of auto range (being 550, just like vayne), so the ordinary combo of shield-slow -> grenade -> q,q,q,q,q,q,q,q can be a bit more challenging vs champs with very high range/effective range like caitlyn. Vayne, on the other hand, has equally short auto range, has more predictable movement and since q's have monstrous range, if you hit the grenade, then it doesn't matter if vayne condemn's you away, which makes him very strong against her in lane. Sadly urgot isn't really popular so you don't see this too often.

Caitlyn has insane range and incredibly strong harass + traps none of which Vayne really has an answer to. Pretty straightforward.

This on is pretty easy, Kassadin has a 650 range nuke/silence. Vlad's q is 600, and early on in lane, they are roughly equal in cooldown, so pre 6, it is well within reason for Kass to totally screw up any attempt for vlad to really do anything. it also helps that Kass has some extra mres for a passive.

Ahri ruins xerath's day hardcore, she has long range and good sustain which he lacks, a very pokey Q which can chunk him if he sieges up, but mostly it comes down to the ults. Xerath has 3 delayed skillshot nukes, Ahri has 3 dashes, its a very hard counter. If a Xerath lands his ult on you as Ahri you did something wrong. Just wait for him to start ulting then zip around and kill him while dodging it. Also ahri can hit Xerath with her heart while he is ulting to significantly delay the second and third procs.

Yorick excels at laning against champions who want to trade in some way. Yorick excels at trading and harassing. He can harass with W and E and his E heals him so much that it's impossible to out harass him, and it's hard to straight up fight him because of his passive and again E healing. Nasus has more sustain than most champs when it comes to just eating his harass and farming, and also benefits the most from farming passively. Yorick also can't really escape ganks from Nasus like he can other lanes, his speed and slow is much less than Nasus W. Nasus can also Q farm off his ghouls. Nasus seems to be a nightmare to yorick although some of this is due to watching Sypher pick him against Dyrus' yorick I think and seeing how it went.

Malphite + Cho'gath both fall under the same category because they largely screw with pantheon for the approx the same reasons. The primary reason is the fact that they can just straight up build armor and it doesn't affect their build at all, since they typically build said armor items anyways (i.e. frozen heart, GA, etc) and don't have to rush an early offensive item to be effective. Thus, they can very quickly out-armor pantheon for 0 opportunity cost.

In terms of actual laning specifics:For malphite, his temp shield is very frustrating for panth to deal with, since it operates largely the same as pantheon's own shield, except that it's even better vs spells, which is the primary form of lane interaction that pantheon has. He also cannot trade q + e combos as well with malphite, partially due to the shield, and partially due to the movespeed and attackspeed reductions that come with it. All in all, malph becomes a very frustrating champ to lane against as a pantheon.

For cho'gath, his healing passive makes it very difficult for pantheon's harass to have much of a long-term effect. Furthermore, he can actually trade autoattacks with pantheon early on due to vorpal spikes. Finally, cho is really effective at disrupting panth's HSS with both scream and knockup, and, because it disrupts HSS, it means that cho's q+e+auto combo will often outtrade pantheon's own q+w+e+q combo.

Yorick is a massive jackass in general and can really screw with pantheon in a lot of ways. First of all, his ghouls largely negate panth's passive, and panth's passive is actually a major factor dictating a lot of his vs. melee wins. Second of all, Yorick has a low CD, low mana cost, long range harass nuke that also has a significant amount of burst and sustained heal, all in one skill, (which is nuts in general). Post lvl 6, it is very difficult to commit vs yorick because he can basically just zerg you, and even if you do manage to kill him, he comes back and finishes you off anyways. The final nail in the coffin is that yorick completely out-maneuvers pantheon in terms of mobility. He is faster than pantheon (with q) and he can slow the shit out of panth (with w) for an extended period of time.

Riven beats her at all stages of the lane. Akali's damage is insignificant as compared to riven at level 1 and beyond, Q- only harass by Akali can be negated by Riven's shield, her post 6 mobility is matched by Riven, and she can be AoE'd under shroud by Riven as well. Don't pick her into this matchup. If you have, open cloth 5pot and try to salvage what cs you can, or go all-in and ask for extremely early jungle ganks in the hope that you can kill her early (if so, the lane can become playable with a level or two of advantage).

Lee Sin's e, if hit, can cause Akali's shroud to be of limited effectiveness in escaping harass and creep aggro as well as in juking. Akali can use the invis period before the destealth when leaving the shroud, in combination with placing the shroud next to bushes, in order to dodge his e. With a cloth 5 pot opening the lane is sustainable for Akali, although ganks may be needed.

Anivia struggles against casters who have long range spells not blocked by creeps that can double as harass and AoE clears pre 6, as lasthitting underneath tower with her is difficult, and she has trouble managing long range trades with her q+e combo. Her counterharass against shorter range spells is significantly stronger as the chance of landing her q goes up significantly with shorter distance between her target and herself. If these casters also have a good autoattack animation and the ability to kill her when egged, these matchups can be disastrous for Anivia without proper team aid. Some examples of such difficult opponents include Cassiopeia and Viktor. These lanes become extremely troublesome when disadvantaged, as they can harass Anivia when she comes close enough to ult and clear the wave, while being able to counterpush against Anivia as well. Take care not to die early against these lanes, requesting jungler aid as needed.

Given the nature of Annie's kit, she usually either onesidedly wins lanes or loses them in straight up 1v1s. Her kit in lane is essentially 3 damage spells, one with a mana reset (helpful in trades and to build up her passive stacks). The ranges on her q and w, 625, is decidedly average for a caster. They are not short enough for most AP champions to be able to spell-harass her without fear of retribution if she opens boots and run towards the enemy champion as she is targetted. However, one champion with such a kit is Zilean. With a 85 range advantage on his main damage and a speed boost as needed, he is able to harass Annie without fear whenever she goes for a q lasthit. Thus Annie is forced to save her q's to counterharass Zilean, and lose to the superior damage of Zilean's double bomb at 3 and 5 (in the time it takes Zilean to double bomb her, she can only get her q off reliably if Zilean starts walking backwards inbetween cast animations), or risk missing her w due to Zilean speed boost or quick movement from Zilean. Annie's options in this matchup are to either recieve superior jungler support (she has an advantage over most AP mids in that she has a fairly long range point and click stun to set up ganks, so losing lanes can be turned around by jungler ganks) or to go all in with ignite at early levels and hope for a misplay or for the enemy to be harassed to the point that the all in will work. The former is a more reliable option.

While Zilean is the most binary counter to Annie, other casters with long range harass that can reliably land are also very powerful against her. Xerath has similar laning function to Annie (harass / trade into conditional stun and ignite kill) but has superior range on his primary harass. Cassiopeia has superior range with her q, but her real threat to Annie is Annie's inability to trade efficiently with Cassiopeia when she has been poisoned and her stun is not up. This usually results in Annie getting harassed low enough to the point where she cannot reliably build q charges. One less direct but similarly powerful counter is to pick a sustainable laner who has very powerful clearing abilities, forcing Annie to play on the back hand while they are able to take jungle camps / objectives / gank, while being unmovable in lane when they are present. Such laners include Cho'Gath and Galio, whom when runed properly can both sustain themselves and punish Annie for overt harass. The possibilities for Annie to deal with these softer counters are the same as with Zilean, jungler support and setup with stun comboes and all-ins. All-ins tend to be more successful against skillshot champions, as their harass is avoidable through skill and juking, and thus more favorable situations are more easily created than against Zilean's point and click harass.

When Annie hits 6 and beyond, she gains incredible kill potential that makes her deadly if her opponent does not have a big level advantage. If she is allowed to build damage and stun charges on the enemy, she will always have a huge burst threat at and beyond this point. If you are able to survive beyond this point against non Cho/Galio counterpicks, you should have a shot at instagibbing them (especially with jungler aid).

Reserved for when I play her post patch.

LeBlanc is soft-countered by hard pushers (Cassio, Ahri, Morgana, Morde, etc.). If you don't manage to get ahead in the early-game you basically lose the game. One specific hard-counter for her is Sion, who not only is a hard pusher, but also gains health by pushing the lane, which negates the burst LeBlanc has.

Galio is a very good lane counter to Leblanc. Galio's inherent tankyness and more incentive to build MR (because of his passive), Leblanc will be unable to kill him in lane, preventing her from snowballing unless she roams. Galio also is very good at pushing the lane, pushing Leblanc to her tower and forcing her to use spells on CSing or risking losing it to the tower.

In the top lane, Udyr can just heal back everything that Galio throws at him, and is also very mana efficent, meaning he won't go OOM before Galio. If the Galio tries to use his ultimate, Udyr can go into bear stance to stun him and stop the ult early, reducing damage and essentially negating the Galio's teamfight presence for the next 2 mins or so.

Ezreal is basically SG's go-to counerpick bot lane vs vayne. His early up-front burst is phenomenal, and his attack-speed debuff really screws over vayne since A) it affects her silver bolts, and B) vayne's effective range is short enough and her movement predictable enough that it's actually fairly reasonable to consistenly hit w's

Urgot's primary weakness in bot lane is his lack of auto range (being 550, just like vayne), so the ordinary combo of shield-slow -> grenade -> q,q,q,q,q,q,q,q can be a bit more challenging vs champs with very high range/effective range like caitlyn. Vayne, on the other hand, has equally short auto range, has more predictable movement and since q's have monstrous range, if you hit the grenade, then it doesn't matter if vayne condemn's you away, which makes him very strong against her in lane. Sadly urgot isn't really popular so you don't see this too often.

Caitlyn has insane range and incredibly strong harass + traps none of which Vayne really has an answer to. Pretty straightforward.

Janna is the queen of kiting. Alistar (in lane anyways) has some issues with getting close to people, esp if flash is down. He's also highly burst-reliant, and well-timed shields can negate a ton of his damage. Oftentimes, on either side of the matchup, I find the opportunites to really commit on either person as Alistar to be halved if Janna is paying attention.

I'm a little bit hesitant to call vayne a 'counter' to alistar, but good condemns are again, really good at keeping cow away. True dmg also more/less negates his ult.

Xerath is an excellent counterpick to malz because his even more extensive range allows him to stay at safe range from all of malz's damaging spells, malzes Q, which outranges most other AP's considerably, is only encountered at maximum range and its delay makes it easily dodgeable. Xerath can also keep up with Malz's pushing easily and CS from far enough back to be safe from Malefic Visions The really brutal thing about Xerath vs Malz is the fact that Xeraths ult so heavily outclasses Malzahars. The only time you are ever likely to be within range of Malz's ult is when starting your full stun and Ult combo, and due to the quirk of delay in Xerath's ult hitting, if you hit it fast your ult will actually come down right after Malz starts his ult, stunning and interrupting it, at this point malz is pretty much screwed.